Greencastle schools get ready for new projects

In its last meeting of the year the Greencastle Community School Board looked at upcoming projects for the new-year.

The corporation is still waiting on word from Moisture Management so that it can move forward on the McAnally Center roof project. At last month's meeting the board approved the use of Moisture Management to oversee the project.

School Attorney Robert Rund was still waiting on Moisture Management's approval of the revised contract for the project at the time of the board meeting. To make sure the project continues in a timely matter, the board approved school board secretary Bill Tobin and Superintendent Dawn Puckett to be able to approve the contract if necessary.

Puckett also brought up the idea of starting after-school tutoring when the new semester begins.

The program would be targeted to those students in need at Greencastle Middle School and Tzouanakis Intermediate School. The program would support about 125 students split between the two schools.

Parents of the students who would be asked to participate will have a say in if the student would be participating in the tutoring.

"It (tutoring) would not be mandatory," Puckett said. "But expected ... most likely if it is not done, the kids will stay back a grade."

It would cost around $17,000 to fund the program, with part coming from general funds and the other from transportation. The funds will pay for the teachers' time and bus drivers providing rides after the tutoring sessions.

The board approved the tutorng program.

The board also approved the acceptance of various donations totaling $18,200 to help with the McAnally pool lighting project. Puckett informed the board that the corporation had been looking for a way to fund this project for a quite while. The corporation hopes to have the lighting project almost completed before the new semester begins on Tuesday, Jan. 7.

In other business:

-- There were four resignations in the GCSC corporation: Jaime Grivas as the varsity girls' soccer coach, Nicole Kempf as Spell Bowl coach at the high school, Nolan Costin as the volunteer seventh-grade boys' basketball coach and Cheyanne Maddox as a noon aide at Deer Meadow Primary.

-- Because of the Friday, Dec. 6 snow day, Greencastle students will be having a make-up day on Monday, Jan. 20.

-- The school calendar for 2014-15 has been approved and is now available to view at https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B-EH3EBsTDdKS2c0T2ZyeDVQMVk/edit?pli=1

The next school board meeting will be on Monday, Jan. 20, beginning at 7 p.m. at the Central Office within Ridpath School.